“Jesus H. Christ!”
The crowd ebbed and swayed a bit and somehow Becky and I managed to elbow through. I heard a peculiar humming sound emanating from the hole.
“Alex!” Min said when he saw me. “Keep these blasted idiots out of the way. We don’t know what’s inside the damned thing yet.”
A young woman wearing cut-off jeans—no one I recognized—stood on top of the ship and then tried to climb her way out.
But the “egg” suddenly began separating from its shell, peeling away from itself at the top, and then unfolding section by section into the protective lid that covered the thing. Someone banged against me and I almost fell forward into the hole. As I cursed the slob who’d rammed me in the back with his elbow, the canopy caromed off with a clunk. Becky grabbed my waist.
“Alex?!” she half screamed.
I looked down into the heart of darkness.
For a moment the cavity seemed perfectly black, particularly with the setting sun glaring in my eyes. Then I saw something stir within the shadows, swishing around in the liquid interior with a soft, almost billowy movement, wave after wave. Two luminous disk-like eyes abruptly popped out of the goop, staring at me. Something that looked like a squid’s tentacle, as thick as a baseball bat, rose out of the aperture and wriggled towards us—followed immediately by another, and then another.
Oh, the horror! The horror!
Becky shrieked. I, brave soul that I was, couldn’t even move, I was so scared. It was as if that thing, that creature, whatever the hell it was, had impaled me there on a needle, pinioned beneath its imperious gaze and waving arms.
“Alex!” Becky yelled again.
More tentacles were now creeping out of the cavity. I pushed Becky away from the thing, and slowly moved back, keeping myself between her and the horror rising up behind us. Everyone was screaming and running and clawing, trying to get away from that terrible place. The stench of the creature almost overpowered my senses. Even Dr. Johnson-Carson—well, all of them, really—were affected by the same gut-wrenching disgust and distaste and dislike, and were falling all over themselves trying to be the first ones to escape. I saw people trampled beneath the feet of men and women whom I would have called “friends” earlier that day. Terror gripped my soul and squeezed it into a little black stone. I had to force myself finally to move.
A great gray bulk the size of a dolphin was prying itself slowly, even painfully out of the ship, dripping mossy red fluid from its hide. It looked like a piece of well-worn canvas as it bulged up on the edge and caught the last of the sunlight, glistening like wet leather. It slowly positioned itself above the gaping entrance to the spaceship.
Two large, black-rimmed eyes regarded me dispassionately. That it saw me I have no doubt whatsoever, because it followed my movements as I retreated backwards, step by stumbling step. That it regarded me as an enemy I understood instinctively, as a mouse trembles before the cat.
The head of the thing had sort of a hump on top. Its face, if you could call it that, occupied one side of the leathery gray body. Beneath the oversized eyes was scratched a broad mouth, its vee-shaped brim quivering and panting with its exertions. Ruby fluid of some kind drooled and dripped to the surface below. It had no obvious nose, but the whole creature was heaving convulsively with its breaths, obviously burdened by the immense gravity of Earth as compared with that of Mars. Two of its tentacles gripped the edge of the ship, securing its body, while a third swayed in the air.
Those who’ve never experienced a living Martian in the flesh, so to speak, can’t really imagine the sudden impact of a first encounter on one’s senses. It wasn’t just the odor, similar to decaying flesh, that bothered me, but the peculiar vee-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges or chin beneath its wedge-like lower lip, the constant quivering of the opening, the Gorgon-like groups of the short feelers surrounding the orifice, the constant huffing and puffing of its lungs struggling to inhale our thick, humid atmosphere, the heavy and painfully slow movements of its body, and the dozen or more tentacles protruding from its base.
More than anything else, I found disquieting the intense gaze of those large, inhuman eyes, monstrous and cold—oh, so frigid—as they watched and waited and weighed us, and found us wanting in the balance. The oily, brown-gray skin looked almost slimy in the bright light, and there was something very mean and nasty in the clumsy deliberation of the alien’s movements.
I had no illusions at all about the thing: this was a monster! It was never going to be a friend to mankind. It was always going to be “Us vs. Them.” There was no compromise possible with those pitiless orbs.
Of course, all this was just my first take on the creatures, and as with so many other things, eventually proved to be, well, inaccurate, to say the least.
Suddenly the creature vanished, toppling into the pit below with a dull thud, like the thump of a huge whale stranded on a sandy beach. I heard a peculiar cry, something like “Hah-hoo!,” and then another alien appeared, hovering in the shadows of the exit portal, ready to step out into our world, ready to assume its crown of leadership.
I was very, very frightened—I’m not a brave man. I grabbed Becky’s arm, turned, and ran like hell, making for a grove of trees a hundred yards away, stumbling and looking back as I pushed her forward in front of me.
When we reached the oaks, we were panting heavily. I had to hold Becky to keep her from falling, she was so exhausted. We were surrounded by people staring in half-fascinated terror at the pile of dirt marking the hole.
And then I saw the “jeans” girl bobbing up and down on the rim, like a little dark toy outlined against the setting sun. She managed to get her shoulder and knee up over the lip, then slipped back again until just her head showed. Suddenly I heard a faint shriek and she vanished for good. I wanted to go back and help her, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, and Becky wouldn’t have let me anyway.
Our little drama was being obscured by the onset of darkness. Anyone driving along the road from Novato would have been stunned at the sight of a hundred folks scurrying around, trying to hide in ditches, crouching behind bushes and trees, hardly speaking to each other except in short, excited bursts, and staring, staring, staring at the heaps of sand piled around the pit. But there was nothing more to be seen.
The wiser ones, the ones with any sense at all, fled for home. A few vehicles stood nearby, abandoned and derelict, outlined against the declining pastels of pink and orange that signaled the end of another day.
It was the end of our day, all right.
It was the end of man’s rule on Earth.
CHAPTER FIVE
STING-RAY
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
—Muhammad Ali
Alex Smith, 24 December, Mars Year i
Novato, California, Planet Earth
After my first tête-à-tête with the Martians, something made me stay close to the action. Becky was begging me to leave, but I had to see it through. I wanted to know what was happening. I kept staring at the mound that hid the aliens. I wavered between fear and curiosity—and curiosity “killed the cat,” as they say.
Of course, I wasn’t foolish enough actually to venture any closer to the damned thing. I hid myself in the brush, and Becky finally stopped tugging at me.
“What is it about men, anyway,” she muttered under her breath, “that makes them do such stupid things?”
What indeed?
But, the fact remains that I wanted to experience the outcome of our little adventure. This was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I’d become a spectator of our first encounter with a species from another world. However it came out, this meeting was the most important event in human history. We were no longer alone in the universe!
I tried to find some better vantage point, dragging Becky along behind me. I almost climbed a tree. Suddenly I saw several black whips, like the arms of an octopus, flash against the darkening sky. Then a thin rod wa
s pushed out of the pit, joint by joint; it had a circular disk at the top rotating in a wobbling motion. It reminded me of a juggler balancing a plate on a stick. What the hell were they doing over there?
Most of the onlookers were wandering their way back to Novato. I recognized Frank Somebody-or-Other. I don’t recall his name now.
“Goddam slimy critters!” he was saying to anyone who’d listen. “Gotta kill ’em all!” He repeated this refrain over and over again.
“What do you see?” I asked, but he paid no attention to me, just moseyed on by. Although the crowd had largely dissipated, a few diehards gathered together in a group. I could hear their occasional murmurs in the background.
After awhile sheer boredom brought some of the people back again, including new arrivals from town. As the light dimmed, I could see the reestablished crowd jerking forward back towards the alien craft. They spread out in a thin, irregular crescent to the right and left. I followed their lead, moving slowly out of the cover provided by our trees, but telling Becky to stay where she was.
“Wait!” she said, but I was already moving; of course, she trailed along right behind me, silly woman.
Then I noticed several men standing in front of the mound marking the spaceship; one of them was waving a white flag made from his undershirt. They were too far away for me to recognize anyone, but afterwards I heard (although I could never confirm) that Min, J.C., and “O” were among those trying to communicate with the buggers.
Suddenly, a bright green flash slashed through the night, and then again! and again! in three distinct jabs of lightning, sizzling—zap, zap, zap!—and highlighting everything before me.
Briefly I saw the little group of folks with their pitiful white flag as their faces turned a pale green and just faded away. I heard their flesh boiling and smelled the odor of roasting pork. Becky was violently sick behind me. The hissing slowly mutated into a bass humming, and then became a long, loud, almost droning sound. Slowly a great humped shape rose out of the pit, highlighted by a ghost of pale green light that seemed to flicker within.
More flashes of green fire stabbed through the night, their brilliant glare jumping from one individual to another, turning each man and woman into a pillar of emerald light.
By the glow of these human torches I could see individuals staggering and falling and trying to run away, but always too late, always too goddamned late.
“Oh, the people!” Becky said, choking on her vomit, “oh dear God, the poor people!”
I just stood there agape, not yet realizing what was happening here. Zap! came the lightning, and another man fell forward onto the earth; and, as the shafts of light and heat passed over and through them, the live-oaks surrounding the basin suddenly burst into flame, together with any unburned bushes and brush surrounding them. As far south as Terra Linda I could see trees and shrubs and buildings suddenly coming alight. For a moment, I thought I was seeing some kind of Christmas display, and then realized that everything was tinged with a sickly green.
My God, I thought, what kind of range does this sting-ray have?
Back and forth it swept, this flaming agent of death, this invisible sword of heat and light, back and forth, seeking anything that moved and much that didn’t. I saw it drifting back towards me, and I was a dead man for sure, until Becky grabbed my chest and pulled me to the ground beside her, sheltering us both in a natural hollow. I was too astonished even to protest. I heard the crackling of fire around the pit and a sharp, quick scream that was suddenly choked off in mid-voice. Along a curving green line beyond the hole the ground smoked and sparkled and spit, and oh, oh God, did it ever burn! Something fell with a crash far away to the left, where the road from Novato parallels the fields. Then the hissing and humming ceased, and the black, domelike object sank slowly back out of sight.
We were alive! Becky’s quick action and the luck of geography had saved us when nothing else could. It’s better to be lucky than smart, I discovered, and I remembered that lesson in later days.
Everything had happened so quickly that I was still dumbfounded and dazzled by the residual flashes of light. They seemed burned into my retina, the odd shapes that still floated there. If the sting-ray had swept around again, well, I probably would have died with the others. But it didn’t, and once more I was reminded how much my existence depended on the quirkiness of fate. Call it God, call it what you will, but I lived when so many others died. Even so, the night had become dark and unfamiliar and terrible to me.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I whispered to my dear wife. I should have spoken those words “years” earlier.
The world had declined to near-black. Our road to safety lay gray and pale under the deep ebony sky. The field was nearly deserted. Overhead the stars were beginning to appear, but in the west a small crescent of sky was still tinged almost greenish blue. I could see the tops of a few surviving trees and the distant buildings of the suburbs against the fading dusk.
The Martians and their weapon were gone now, save for one thin black line that continued to move up and down like a metronome. Everything around us stank of destruction. A few houses on the outskirts of town were still spurting spires of spindly flame into the stillness of the evening sky. I could hear the squeaky sirens of the fire engines responding. “Ooh-lah,” they said, “ooh-lah.”
The people were gone. Most of those killed probably didn’t realize what was happening to them. Some had had sense enough to hit the ground, as we had, and one of these, I discovered later, was my friend Min.
But right now we were helpless, unprotected, and alone.
“Quiet!” I hissed.
We turned and began a stumbling, shuffling run back through the smoldering brush.
Our fear turned to panic and terror, not just of the Martians, but of everything around us. We ran quicker and quicker the further away we got. I started weeping underneath my heaving breath; I just couldn’t help myself. We’d lost something out there that could never be recovered. Neither of us dared to look back.
I suddenly got the idea that we were being toyed with, that, just before we reached safety, something would rise up and strike us both dead.
Mercifully or mercilessly, whichever you prefer, we reached our home again within the hour. But we both knew in our heart of hearts that we’d never feel safe—anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
“What do we do now, Alex?” Becky asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
Even to this day, the question is the same.
Even to this day, the answer is the same.
CHAPTER SIX
MERRY CHRISTMAS, NEW NOVATO!
Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
—Sir Walter Scott
Alex Smith, 25 December, Mars Year i
Novato, California, Planet Earth
But where were the media?
Some forty bodies lay sprawled around the pit, charred and distorted beyond recognition in grotesque parodies of slumbering sleepers. A few of those killed had been completely or partially vaporized by the sting-ray, leaving just a shoe or watch or leg or arm or…whatever. All during the night the hills west of Novato and south towards Woodacre continued to burn, lighting up the sky with their flames.
What we didn’t know is that the second and third and fourth ships had already impacted on other parts of the Bay Area, one falling on Mountain Court in Walnut Creek to the east, another striking Windswept Lane in Bodega Bay to the northwest, still another crashing into an apartment complex on Fredonia Avenue in Mountain View to the south. News coverage converged on these areas as the alien capsules began to open and their inhabitants emerged, with results similar to those in Novato.
Another Martian ship landed at San Bernardino in Southern California, smashing onto the campus of some university there. I watched the news reports on CNN showing the administration bu
ilding in flames, men and women running around outside and screaming their heads off, completely without direction or purpose. More impacts occurred over the next week in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, including Maiden Lane in North Hollywood, Santa Avelina Alley in Santa Monica, Wendigo Avenue in Aliso Viejo, El Borgo Boulevard in San Bernardino, Citrón Avenue in Redlands, and near the Hollywood sign in the hills over Los Angeles.
More vessels fell just outside Nevada City near Squirrelly Drive and into the Pacific Ocean west of the Farallones Islands; this was seemingly confirmed by a small tsunami ten to twenty feet high that swept certain south-facing beaches later that day.
The aliens appeared to be intent on occupying the major population centers of California and destroying pieces of the physical infrastructure, to some purpose yet unknown.
Our efforts to communicate with the invaders were rebuffed. I saw several reports on MSNBC of peace delegations being wiped out to a man, just as they’d been during our own encounter with the Martians.
Word of the so-called “Novato Massacre” was initially reported as a California wildfire tragedy, one of a series of such events that we’d been experiencing throughout a very dry year. By the time anyone realized what was actually happening, no one was much interested in Marin County; too many other things were going on.
The next morning was Christmas Day. In Novato the stores were mostly closed, save for a few restaurants and fast food outlets serving breakfast. A number of folks took advantage of the cool morning weather to walk west along Novato Boulevard (it’d been closed to through traffic during the night), just to see what had burned. Clouds of gray-brown smoke indicated several active fire zones, and the police directed the people away from these areas. But the excitement of a disaster and the clear weather still brought the crowds out to watch, despite the holiday.
Few folks in Novato knew anything at all about the Martian ship. The stories in our newspaper were mostly dismissed as a hoax; and nothing further had happened in any case, save for the fires, which were thought to be the work of arsonists. Those missing had been reported to the local police, but they too were believed victims of the smoke and flames of the previous evening. As the authorities began recovering the bodies, all of which showed evidence of charring, the remains seemed to confirm these theories.
Invasion! Earth vs. The Aliens Page 3